The Flinty Fox

Hi. Thanks for the review louis D. I also read somewhere that the same man who wrote that review replaced a televue panoptic with that very eyepiece, which does say a lot, so yes I am quite convinced. Thanks Ally8446 for the recommendation also. Thanks F15rules for your comments I also read that the Vixen NLVW isn't as good as the rest of the range. I've seen the APM for sale for 199Euro (about £175) which is a little over my budget but seeing as every body seems to be recommending it I suppose I could stretch a little further. Thanks scousespacecadet. Think I also prefer the twist up eye cup also they do help with eye placement but you also say that the Vixen had the edge over the Aero, which is interesting. Oh I don't know its so difficult I sometimes think it might be easier to flip a coin though I am tempted by the APM. Thanks everyone again. Paul

Hi louis, thanks for the reply. Very interested comparison images you have there took me a while to work out what I was looking at. Neat idea, you can see the difference between each eyepiece. The aeros do seem to get good reviews, as for the Vixen they tend to be mixed. The 35mm I think is a bit low power and was thinking more of the 30mm. Can't say I've heard of the APM but will certainly check it out thanks. Hi John and thanks. You said that the 35mm and 40mm are better corrected in faster scopes than the 30mm. Now I'm not sure, the 35mm will be fine in the WO but not sure about the 150p, too large an exit pupil. I suppose I could try out both and see. I've tried looking for reviews on both and it seems the aeros do get the better reviews and more of then than the Vixen. Thanks again. Paul

If you had a skywatcher 150p f5 and a William optics 80mm f6.8 which of these two eyepiece would you choose? OVL 30mm Aero ed SWA or the Vixen NLVW 30mm lanthanum glass 65deg. Thinking of summer milky-way grazing. Many thanks. Paul.

Thanks Alan. I have occasionally looked at the orion optics scopes, mirrors and they do look nice but I think I'm happy with the performance of my 150p for now. Maybe if the mirrors fail might upgrade. 150mm v 80mm is unfair but I think my interest is in how different objects simply look through them. Aesthetics. I do like both and to me have different uses. One thing I do like about the 150p is eyepiece holder location, it always seems to maintain same height of the ground and I don't need to extend mount legs which makes it more stable. Interesting that the vixen and the 150OO are still having to fight, is it that close? Thanks Paul.

Hi. Should of done this sooner i'm a bit slack when it comes to posting, anyway, had a look at the Moon and must say this comparison thing is not as easy as it looks. The comparison was done over three nights, I am comparing a William optics 80mm to a Skywatcher 150p, for fun mainly. The first night didn't really reveal anything the Moon was a bit low and seeing wasn't great and got steadily worse as the session progressed, but there were tantalising glimpses that the 150p wanted to show more but the poor seeing did not allow it. The magnifications used were 136x in the WO 80mm via a 4mm Vixen LV4 and 130x in the 150p via a Tele vue 13mm smooth side barlowed in the Baadar Q-turret, and a good barlow it is. I did decide to take a look at Venus as it was near by and found that I preferred the view through the 150p than the Wo 80mm. The 150p showed Venus a half lit white snooker ball and couldn't see any false colour which is what I saw through the WO 80mm. The 150p did show diffraction spikes but I think I find them less distracting than false colour. The second night was a bit more fruitful. I concentrated on the crater Copernicus and the surrounding area and after much toing and froing from each telescope I felt satisfied that indeed I was able to see details through the 150p that I couldn't see through the WO 80mm. There were details within a small area North of Copernicus that were visible through the 150p but not the WO 80mm. Seeing was still a bit of a challenge but when it was good the differences were quite clear to see. The Moon also appeared much brighter through the 150p and had a more neutral colour. It wasn't long after I had done this that a though occurred to me, or maybe anxiety, that perhaps the reason I was able to see more through the 150p was because the Vixen LV4 that I used wasn't performing to scratch. So I decided to go out for a third night to compare the Vixen to the other eyepiece I have, which to be honest isn't that many. I decided to use just the one scope, the 150p, for this comparison. The eyepiece used where the Vixen LV4 188x, Tele vue 13mm barlowed in the Baadar Q-turret 130x and a Tele vue 10.5mm also barlowed in Q-turret 161x. Again after much toing and foing I finally concluded that the level of detail seen through each eyepiece was petty much the same though there were times when I felt I could be a tad more through the Vixen LV4, which was good. Main difference where brightness and contrast as the mag went up. So in conclusion, and I'm not an expert, as far as I can tell everything seems to be working well and that my toleration, is this a word?, of false colour is perhaps not as high as I though. As for the two scopes, I think I might be preferring the views through the 150p but agree they are very different and have different uses. Anyway hope this makes sense this is probably stuff I've missed out. Thanks Paul.

Hi all and thanks for the reply's. I agree that comparing a 150mm scope to an 80mm scope is a bit unfair towards the 80mm, and it is proving to be not as straightforward as I initially thought. A 100mm or 120mm refractor would be a more meaning comparison but unfortunately I don't have one so all I can do is work with what I have. I guess what I'm interesting in is how the two different designs compare rather than actual performance, thou I will probably be attempting a performance comparison on the Moon this weekend if the weather is good, but I will be making a note on star shapes. I have tried the aperture mask before but the one I made wasn't very good so I might try again. Anyway I had another go last night. The objects looked at was Mizar, Asellus Tertius and Primus and Cor Caroli. The scopes were allowed to cool for a least 1 hour before starting and the same eyepieces were used to achieve same mag of 41x, a Baadar 18mm BCO in the 150p and a Tele vue 13mm volcano top in The WO 80mm. Looking at Mizar I found the view through the 150p to be overall fresher than the 80mm but I think this could be an eyepiece/mag issue as the 80mm is having to work slightly harder achieve same mag, the background in the 80mm being slightly darker. That said I found Mizar and its companion to be slightly whiter and more gleamy in the 150p but in the 80mm star images were more behaved though slightly less white and less gleamy. Overall the liked the views through the 150p better. Asellus Tertius and Primus was interesting. I was able to frame both double stars in the field of view but as the 150p is a fast-ish Newtonian I was only able to view the doubles one at a time, viewing both meant they were at the edges and so unreasonable. The 80mm didn't suffer that problem and so both were seen and split. I did view the doubles individually through both scopes and I enjoyed the views through both, though, the star images in the 80mm were better behaved and I suppose a tad more star like but I think the 150p can produce nice star images when things settle but are generally less well behaved. overall the views through the 80mm, for the reason both could be seen at the same time, were nicer. Cor Caroli was a little rushed I confess and I also began trying different eyepieces/mags in both scopes so the overall conclusion on this one isn't that clear. I liked the views through both but in different ways. Clearly more experiment is needed. I think so far from what I have seen if you are the type of person who likes double stars then a good refractor is probably the thing you should get. This is not groundbreaking news I know but this is something I have only ever read about, and so to actually see this for myself and come to that conclusion is I suppose revealing, if that makes sense. Having said that I like the 150p and I think it is pulling its weight and performing well, it will be interesting to see how they both compare on the Moon and I will be trying to check actual performance. Hope this all makes sense. Thanks. Paul.

Hi. I haven't posted for a while so I thought I would. For a while now I've owned both a Skywatcher 150P and a William Optics 80mm ED refractor and have wanted to do a side by side comparison of the two, so the other night finally managed to do it. I had them mounted on an azimuth mount so I was quickly able to switch from one to the other, the eyepieces used enabled the same mag to be achieved, 41X. The reason was not to see which one performed the best but to see how things just generally looked between the two as people are saying how much nicer stars look through a refractor than a reflector. You could call FOMO if you wish. 80mm V 150mm perhaps not a fair comparison but these are all I have. This was my first go at this sort of thing so I will be doing this more and on more objects, particularly the moon, to try and get a good idea of how they compare. I should Have waited for the scopes to cool properly but it was already getting late but towards the end things did steady, I think I must of been out at least an hour+. Objects looked at were Polaris, M35, Orion Nebula and Sigma Orionis. Sigma Orionis was the first and last object I looked at so first attempts were not great as scopes had not cooled properly, but by the end things had improved and were looking good through both scopes with some nice colour, of what I could detect anyway, but couldn't decide which view I prefered. The WO 80mm was more steady than the 150P but when the 150P did steady itself the views I thought were still nice. The view of the Orion Nebula, to me, were better through the 150P. It was brighter more structure and just gererally easier to view. Polaris again I thought was just nicer through the 150P, it was brighter with the secondary easier to see and the defraction spice do look nice. The WO 80mm was nice but less impressive. M35 was a bit of a difficult one. The 150P was brighter and easier to see but the WO 80mm was perhaps a bit steadier but dimmer, but overall I think the 150P maybe just did it. This isn't an exact scientific experiment, I'm just seeing how things look but it is a bit early to come to any firm conclusions so more looking is needed. Next time I will allow proper cooling of the scopes. The moon will hopefully be up this weekend so will try that and see how that looks. Hope this all makes sense. Stay safe.

I was actually attempting to collimation my secondary this evening, only for the second time, and I couldn't remember what I was so supposed to be aligning. Now having read your collimation article the process seems much clearer now and have a much better idea of what I'm supposed to be doing. Many thanks. Paul